{"id":545,"date":"2013-11-13T16:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T21:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/?p=545"},"modified":"2013-11-13T16:00:40","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T21:00:40","slug":"dreaming-of-a-world-of-peace-grace-and-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/11\/dreaming-of-a-world-of-peace-grace-and-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreaming of a World of Peace, Grace and Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I have just returned from extraordinary trip to Thailand. I went to connect with colleagues from around the globe to talk about the future of the progressive church. I\u2019m not sure what I was expecting. I was daunted by the 30 hours of travel that it was going to take to get to Bangkok and hopeful that the people I encountered along the way would make it all worth while. I was curious to see what progressive Christian leaders from other countries would have to say about the church in their context. In the United States, we tend to be a little depressed about the future of the church. We have witnessed years and years of decline and have a pretty limited capacity for dreaming at this point.<\/p>\n

I must tell you that the people that I met were extraordinary. We gathered from every corner of the globe \u2013 from Uganda, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, from Malaysia, from Costa Rica, from Brazil, from the United States, from England, from the West Bank, from South Africa, from Australia \u2013 40 of us all dreaming of a world of peace, grace and justice. I will write more specifics about the experience itself in the coming days. At the end of our journey together, we developed a list of values \u2013 dreams actually \u2013 of the kind of world that, if we work together, we hope to create. Here\u2019s what we seek:<\/p>\n